02 October 2018

Repeat of last year's World Series?

Predicting the baseball postseason is an annual tradition on this otherwise defunct blog, so, as busy as I am, I'll take a few minutes to do the same kind of analysis I've done the last eleven years, essentially factoring out each team's luck to see how good they really were this season.  The Nostradamian, Pythagorean and actual win percentages for all teams in 2018:

nW%pW%W%
Astros.642414.675428.635802
Dodgers.628896.623713.564417
Red Sox.609712.635185.666667
Yankees.599109.608342.617284
Athletics.582831.584950.598765
Rays.572413.546929.555556
Indians.567910.604999.561728
Brewers.562571.561301.588957
Braves.561871.565644.555556
Nationals.552453.555882.506173
Cubs.552293.575090.582822
Cardinals.524177.542837.543210
Rockies.522768.520991.558282
Diamondbacks.512143.533499.506173
Mariners.496427.477597.549383
Pirates.493447.499339.509317
Mets.490566.479498.475309
Angels.486871.499366.493827
Phillies.485483.466821.493827
Twins.465049.477634.481481
Blue Jays.446514.427329.450617
Reds.441841.426094.413580
Giants.431721.432821.450617
Padres.423482.401735.407407
Rangers.419389.436166.413580
White Sox.418987.384664.382716
Tigers.404777.394604.395062
Royals.385066.380352.358025
Marlins.379331.358750.391304
Orioles.351535.340793.290123

So this year the luckiest teams were the Red Sox, Mariners and Rockies; the unluckiest were the Dodgers, Orioles and Nationals.  Only one of the best seven teams was from the National League.  Only the five actually best teams made the playoffs; if the ten actually best teams had made the playoffs, the Rays and Nationals would be in and the Cubs and Rockies would be out.  If all teams had the win-loss records they deserved, no division champions would change—in fact, there'd be only one minor change in the final positions:  The White Sox would finish 2 games ahead of the Tigers instead of 2 games behind them in the AL Central.  The Nationals would take the wild card ahead of the Rockies.  Because of divisional alignments, the Rays still wouldn't make the playoffs despite being better than the Indians.  And the Astros, not the Red Sox, would have the best record in baseball and home-field advantage throughout the postseason.

Based on the above results, it's reasonable to predict:

 Red Sox over YankeesAstros over Red SoxAstros over Dodgers
Yankees over Athletics
 Astros over Indians
Dodgers over BravesDodgers over Brewers
Cubs over RockiesBrewers over Cubs
 

But what I'm rooting for is very different:

 Athletics over Red SoxAthletics over IndiansAthletics over Cubs
Athletics over Yankees
 Indians over Astros
Dodgers over BravesCubs over Dodgers
Cubs over RockiesCubs over Brewers
 

I got all the statistics I needed for this analysis from these three pages: A B C

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